Mark P. McDonaldIT professional have been waiting younger and more technology savvy executives to assume leadership positions in their companies. The hope was that technology savvy leaders would be more positive in their view of IT.
Well, it was only a matter of time and that time has come – and you are not going to like it.
Over the past few months I have met with these CEOs and talked with CIOs about their IT attitudes and expectations. These are some of the observations about tech savvy CEOs:
- They appreciate the role of IT in raising business performance, creating new products and services, expanding customer relationships, etc.
- They have first hand experience using technology to manage business units, launch new products. Often they have experience as a champion of prior technology-intensive transformation initiative.
- They recognize that technology is not a universal solution to every business challenge. However they also recognize that IT is central to implementing most courses of action.
- They recognize that IT capabilities require investment and that investment should pay returns both in lower IT operating costs as well performance improvements in business operations.
These observations are good news and fit the expectations of IT professionals. However, these same observations carry with it some serious challenges for CIOs and IT. Those expectations include:
- IT needs to operate and contribute in the same fashion as other business units, particularly in terms of raising operational performance on an ongoing basis.
- IT needs to be as responsive as any other operational business unit. If the cycle of the business to implement a change, launch a new product or make an improvement is shorter than IT’s cycle time, then IT is not meeting expectations.
- IT needs to leverage its resources rather than having every challenge result in a funding request.
- IT needs to mange for results. Managing your resources is assumed, what they expect is how you create value using those resources.
Savvy CEO’s expect IT to become a market responsive and operationally effective organization delivering value beyond what can CEOs can source in the marketplace.
The notion of “running IT like a business” was quaint centering on IT as a profit center fitting the mental model of non-technical CEOs.
An educated CEO challenges current IT models. They know what is technically possible. They know what they need from IT. They know when IT is not meeting those needs and they will make the changes necessary to get results.
It was a matter of time before tech savvy people entered the C-suite. Now that they are here, and more are arriving each day, IT will never be the same.
The matter of time now concerns operating a functional based IT model and that time is running out.
Forget about running IT “like” a business and start running IT in the business.
Category: CIO Leadership Strategy Tags: Business Leadership, CEO, CIO Leadership
4 responses so far ↓
1 Alan Hesketh August 18, 2009 at 1:05 am
Actually, Mark, I think quite the opposite – I would love to work for a CEO with those expectations.
I think the expectations that you describe the CEO as having should be the expectations that we have of ourselves as CIOs. If we want to justify being part of the executive leadership of an organisation, our thinking has to be about the organisation we are part of leading, not our particular patch.
And managing for results, business results, has to be a given. If we are successful, then there will be an organisational role for us, functional or otherwise.
I’d be interested in you expanding on the last comment. Does this mean you think the days are numbered for a CIO as an executive team member?
2 Mark McDonald August 18, 2009 at 8:31 am
Alan
Thanks for your comment and yes I would love to work for this kind of CEO as well because they have business expectations for IT rather than functional expectations.
I created the post because many of the IT people I am talking with who are waiting for Tech Savvy CEOs see them more from the perspective of validating the importance of IT (the first set of bullets) without necessary making new demands on IT (the bottom set of bullets). Those are the people who are going to be surprised when they get a tech Savvy CEO.
Regarding the last comment about forgetting about running IT like a business. The principles of having IT adopt business practices have had mixed results at best. Those practices often revolve around defining the business as the customer of IT and services as the products IT sells them. The combination separates IT from the rest of the enterprise with a goal of either being zero cost or making a profit. That model worked for non Tech CEOs who have a financially-based understanding of IT. Tech savvy CEOs understand ITs operational impact on the enterprise and want that to be part of core operations rather than a “business like” appendix in their corporate services organization.
To answer your question, the CIOs days as an executive team member are not numbered in my opinion and certainly not when there is a tech savvy CEO AND IT is focused on delivering solutions at speed and scale. Quite the contrary, in these cases, the CIO often picks up other executive responsibilities (customer care, supply chain) as they know how to manage and lead information intensive business processes.
3 Alan Hesketh August 18, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Thanks Mark. As an additional thought, the trend you identify does seem to blur the line between COO and CIO.
4 Leo Genders September 13, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Mark,
I like your take on this and agree. An Information and techology savvy CEO is a huge advantage for a company. I suppose the impact of this development to the CIO and IT team really depends on where they preside on the ‘Vaule-Scale” currently.
Keep this stuff coming Mark. ..Leo
Leave a Comment